Recipes

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Pumpkin Spice Cream Cheese Frosting

Pumpkin cupcakes are moist, packed with pumpkin flavor, and topped with a spiced cream cheese frosting!

Pumpkin cupcakes are moist, packed with pumpkin flavor, and topped with a spiced cream cheese frosting!
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Whether you love pumpkin or are kind of meh on it, I bet you’ll love these pumpkin cupcakes!

Here in Italy, you don’t see many pumpkin-flavored baked goods. Pumpkin is used more in savory preparations: soup, gnocchi, filling for ravioli. I’ve seen pumpkin gelato once but haven’t tried it yet. But essentially, if I want the pumpkin baked goods we have each fall, I need to make them myself.

This weekend there are pumpkin festivals everywhere so I’m hoping to head to one of them! Maybe it’ll inspire more pumpkin dishes or pumpkin pasta!

Pumpkin cupcakes are moist, packed with pumpkin flavor, and topped with a spiced cream cheese frosting!
Pumpkin cupcakes are moist, packed with pumpkin flavor, and topped with a spiced cream cheese frosting!
Pumpkin cupcakes are moist, packed with pumpkin flavor, and topped with a spiced cream cheese frosting!

A confession: I don’t love pumpkin pie. Sacrilege, I know. Much to my mom’s dismay, none of us except her like pumpkin pie. I do like pumpkin things (pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies with frosting or with chocolate chips, pumpkin dip, and even pumpkin brownie pie have all made appearances here before), just not the straight-up pie. So I wanted to create another pumpkin dessert that the pumpkin purists might like but I would love too.

The frosting is the stuff of basic white girl dreams – essentially a PSL in frosting form. Packed with pumpkin pie spice and balanced with a tang of cream cheese, it tastes like fall. I have the leftovers in my kitchen right now and have to talk myself out of dipping a graham cracker in it every time I open the fridge.

Pumpkin cupcakes are moist, packed with pumpkin flavor, and topped with a spiced cream cheese frosting!
Pumpkin cupcakes are moist, packed with pumpkin flavor, and topped with a spiced cream cheese frosting!
Pumpkin cupcakes are moist, packed with pumpkin flavor, and topped with a spiced cream cheese frosting!

Side note: please please please do yourself a favor and make your own pumpkin pie spice. It’s crazy easy to do and then you don’t need to keep one more spice jar on hand. For these cupcakes, I cut this recipe in half and essentially used almost all of it.


Tools you’ll need: mixing bowl, muffin tin, and mixer.

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Pumpkin Pie Cream Cheese Frosting

Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Keyword: fall, pumpkin, pumpkin spice

Ingredients

Pumpkin Cupcakes:

  • 1 cup pumpkin canned
  • tsp vanilla
  • ¾ cup brown sugar dark
  • 2 eggs
  • ½ cup vegetable oil
  • 1 cup flour all purpose
  • tsp pumpkin pie spice homemade
  • ½ tsp salt
  • tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp baking soda

Pumpkin Spice Cream Cheese Frosting

  • 8 oz cream cheese full fat
  • ½ cup butter unsalted
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 1- 1½ tsp pumpkin pie spice
  • 3 cups powdered sugar

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 350°F.
  • In a large bowl, whisk the pumpkin, vanilla, sugar, eggs, and oil together. Sift in the remaining cupcake ingredients.
  • Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners and fill with batter.
  • Bake for 18-20 minutes – use the toothpick test to tell if they're done.
  • While the cupcakes cool, make the frosting: beat the butter for 2 minutes on high with a whisk attachment on your mixer.
  • Add the cream cheese and beat for another 2 minutes, until creamy.
  • Add 1 cup powdered sugar, vanilla, salt and spices. Mix on low for 1 minute, then add another cup of sugar. Mix until just combined, then add the remaining sugar. Beat until just combined.
  • Frost cupcakes and top with a sprinkle of cinnamon!
Pumpkin cupcakes are moist, packed with pumpkin flavor, and topped with a spiced cream cheese frosting!
Pumpkin cupcakes are moist, packed with pumpkin flavor, and topped with a spiced cream cheese frosting!
Pumpkin cupcakes are moist, packed with pumpkin flavor, and topped with a spiced cream cheese frosting!

These pumpkin cupcakes with pumpkin spice cream cheese frosting are so easy to throw together and so delicious they won’t stick around long!

What are your favorite pumpkin baked goods?

Want more? Head over to my Pinterest page for serious recipe and travel inspiration!

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